bjc

Oooops !! Sorry guys. I had a site-clean-up the other day and must have deleted that zip file by mistake. I’ve put it back up here :- http://www.bjc100.co.uk/PTE/LAYERCOMPS.zip Ken, thanks for your help re. the above. bjc

Hi Bill, Thank you for passing comment on my Layer Comps thing ~ I wondered whether CS was also able to achieve this feat and you have now confirmed this ~ cheers !! As for the tutorial section, I produced that using PTE v.4.40 (and the Timeline), with the screengrabs having been captured with Corel Capture. Camtasia would have been the ultimate choice had I intended to produce a Movie tutorial (I do use it to make Flash tutorials) but I thought in this instance a PTE produced tutorial would be more appropriate. I’m glad you agree that the Layer Comps method work well for producing transitional slide sequences ~ on the odd occasion when we might need them. Regards, bjc

I’ve just knocked together a quick tutorial which might be of interest to those of you with Photoshop CS2. It’s based on a rather interesting function of the ‘Layer Comps’ Palette (a seldom used feature of Photoshop), which enables you to automatically create an entire sequence of images from a single multi-layered image file. The situation being that, having created a composite image, made up from a Background Image plus a series of additional layers (Image Layers and/or Adjustment Layers), and you want to create a sequence of images for your Slideshow that take you through from ‘A’ (the original image) to ‘B’ (it’s finished state), plus any number of intermediate ‘image states’ along the way. The normal way to do it would be to manually save a ‘jpg’ copy of each image state – which admittedly doesn’t take all that long to do – but now ‘Layer Comps’ will do it for you automatically. If it sounds like this might be of interest to you, you can download the ‘zip’ file from the link below. The zip file contains two PTE.exe files – (total 8.75MB) Layer Comps.exe Sequence Slide Show.exe Double-click on the ‘Layer Comps.exe’ to start the ball rolling, this in turn runs the Sequence Slide Show afterwards. http://www.btinternet.com/~bjc.albaco/PTE/LAYERCOMPS.zip bjc

Igor, Version 5 beta is unbelievable !! I have just created three test .exe files using a single 4500x3000 pixel image. The .jpg file size of the image used was = 1,734KB A one minute fully animated slideshow came out at 1,898KB A two minute fully animated slideshow came out at 1,898KB and A three minute fully animated slideshow came out at 1,898KB Pan and Zoom (up to 1000%) is as smooth as silk. To say that this is an amazing achievement would be an understatement. Thank you Igor !! Thank you very much !! bjc

Image resizing :- There is a feature in Photoshop that will automatically resize your images to fit within specified limits ~ eg: 1024x768 ~ this works on both ‘landscape’ and ‘portrait’ images and does not distort the image in any way. The feature is called ‘FIT IMAGE’ and is accessed by clicking on File > Automate > Fit Image. Sharpening :- Whenever you resize an image (either upwards or downwards) the image will become slightly softer ~ applying a degree of unsharpmask is generally considered beneficial ~ for images downsized to 1024x768 an amount of 100 / 0.5 / 0 works well. Both the above can be incorporated into an ACTION, which, in conjunction with BATCH ~ File > Automate > Batch ~ can resize / sharpen / rename and save an entire folder full of images for you automatically, saving them to a separate folder if you wish. Stripping the EXIF data from your images will also reduce their file size (although only by 5Kb or so per image) ~ a quick way of doing this is to create a NEW document of your image. This sequence can be built into your ACTION. Select All > Copy (then close the image without saving) File > New > Paste > Flatten. Another option for your ACTION might be to have all your ‘SLIDES’ physically the same size (eg 1024x768, or whatever) with any non-image areas of your slide filled with a colour of your choosing. bjc

Brian,,, Thank you for passing on your archiving techniques – everything you say makes perfect sense. bjc

Igor,,,, Excellent news !! ~ not only have I discovered today that a much needed option already exists in PTE – but now you tell us that in Version 5 you are going to IMPROVE on it !! As the Americans say: “You ARE the man !!” bjc

Ivanhoe - Gerard May I apologise ~ you are both perfectly correct ~ TEMPLATE (Album) does indeed do just what is wanted. I thought that TEMPLATE only saved PROJECT OPTIONS (and the suchlike) I did not realise it did exactly what I was looking for and saved all the image files etc as well. Now I feel really daft - as I've been using PTE for years - and didn't realise this option existed - thank you both very much. bjc

Ivanhoe,, Thank you for your prompt reply - unfortunately TEMPLATE (Album) does not acheive the required result. (or perhaps I'm doing it wrong ?) What (I think !?) is needed is an option which 'copies' all the images, music etc. AND the .pte file to a separate (NEW) location, irrespective of their original source. This would (perhaps) assist many in storing (or backing-up) thier PTE projects in their entirety for future access or reworking. bjc

“Save Entire Project” option ~ Please forgive me if this suggestion has already been made before (it would surprise me if it hadn’t !? ) – but – wouldn’t it be a useful option to be able to save not only the .pte file but also all the images and music used in a show, (and possibly an .exe version too) as a ‘collective’ to new folder of the users choosing ? There can be (and often are) occasions when not ALL the images being used to produce a specific slideshow / lecture / tutorial have been sourced from the same location (drive / folder / or sub-folder on the system), as indeed is often the case with the music – the ability to collate all these elements into one single (new) folder at the click of a mouse button might well prove to be a useful addition. Or am I wrong ? What are your thoughts ? bjc

Eric (Jamai),, thank you for your input ~ I have tested ‘+60 / +72 / -42’ on a range of image types, Architecture / Landscape / Portrait etc., and agree that it can be a useful starting point. I also thank everyone else for their input on this topic. To anyone interested ~~ I can highly recommend downloading the really useful ‘freebie’ Plug-in filter utility as linked below. It would take me forever to describe all that this Plug-in will do, suffice to say that (IMHO) it’s well worth the effort involved. Downloading the small main utility, and (if you wish) the many additional (adjustable) pre-sets on offer (also free), is very straightforward ~~ however, unzipping the relevant files and then relocating them to the necessary Plug-in folder for use in Photoshop (and/or other Imaging platforms) could be a challenge for some !? “ Read the read me on the link before download. “ http://www.optikvervelabs.com/ Those brave enough to attempt this challenge will be rewarded with what must surely be just about the best ‘freebie’ set of end-user adjustable photo-filters available anywhere. Regards, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to all, bjc

Ken ~ I will search out that slideshow and view it asap ~ cheers. Cindy ~ the LAB method you mention is another interesting option ~ your ‘Split Channels’ idea is also very neat as it offers an extension of options over and above ‘Channel Mixer’ (via Masks etc.),,, wed103.jpg looks REALLY good – I shall give that one tomorrow. Jeff ~ when the Gradient Map dialog box comes up on-screen, click on the Tonal Gradient Bar itself ~ this will bring up on-screen the Gradient Mixer (complete with a selection of pre-sets) ~ to add colour-stops to your existing B&W Gradient (?) click just below the bottom edge of the Gradient Bar itself – a new colour-stop will be added where you click,, change it’s colour (to dark/light grey) by clicking on the small colour swatch (color) at the bottom left – add further colour-stops in the same way (as many as you want) ~ adjust how these colour-stops effect your image by dragging them left-or-right along the Gradient Bar (they will even cross over themselves !?) ~ if you like what you see on-screen, click ‘New’ before clicking OK as this will save your newly created Gradient layout as a new pre-set (in the panel above) for future reuse. This technique also lends itself to some serious abstracts – try messing with various colour-stops, placed in different positions along the Gradient – but beware this can drive your eyeballs crazy (!?). bjc

DaveG ~ thank you for that speedy input ~ and what an interesting option it is too ~ I’d not tried that one before ~ it’s well worth adding to the armoury of options isn’t it ~ thanks again !! Ken ~ Sam Huel’s B&W ‘Sabatier’ effect works well ~ I suspect a form of Lighting Effect on an Alpha Channel, or something along similar lines (I’m probably wrong !?) ~ I would be interested to hear how it was done (nudge-nudge-wink-wink), hopefully he’ll let us all know. bjc

I was wondering what the general consensus was, amongst forum members, with regards to the conversion of images to B&W. What method do you use ? Does anyone have any interesting ‘pre-sets’ that offer specific results ~ such as replicating Tri-x / FP4 / HP5 etc. ? Currently, my personal findings are that conversion to ‘Greyscale’ generally works better that ‘Desaturate’ ~ although neither give particularly good results. ‘Channel Mixer’ (monochrome ticked) offers much more control over the final look, although I have not yet found RGB-slider-settings that ‘work’ (for me) consistently across a wide range of image types. My preferred method (at this moment in time) is to use ‘Gradient Map’, running from Black to White, with a dark-grey (#575757) colour-stop at position 29, and a light-grey (c1c1c1) colour-stop at position 69. This seems to work acceptably well with most image types, offering subtle control over the position of the tones in the image by adjusting the location of the two grey colour-stops. I am certain however that many more options exist ~ and probably some excellent ‘pre-sets’ that offer predictable results. I would very much appreciate your recommendations if you know of a good technique. Regards, bjc

This topic has raised some interesting issues. So, I thought I would add my personal thoughts on these matters ( for what they’re worth !? ). 8bit or 16bit ~~ if you have the option to shoot in RAW, then do so. The benefits in doing so are both current and futuristic. Current because, for all situations outside ‘perfect lighting conditions’ RAW offers immeasurably more control over post exposure image correction. Futuristic because RAW files are effectively ‘unprocessed negatives’, on-going improvements in RAW file converters will mean that RAW files captured today have the potential to be improved upon in the future as superior software comes along. I have recently been re-working a selection of RAW files captured back in 1999,,, thanks to CS2 (et al) I can now improve ‘significantly’ on the quality of these images by comparison with what was possible back then. It is not a bad idea to work on images opened up in 16bit – most DSLR’s shoot in 12bit (4096 brightness levels) – working in 16bit will retain all those brightness levels as opposed to 8bit (with only 256 brightness levels) – however – the benefits of doing so will only become apparent when ‘extensive’ tonal adjustments are applied to an image after opening,,, under ‘normal’ conditions little (if any) real world benefit is gained presupposing that all the important adjustments have been made at the conversion stage (exposure/colour/contrast/etc). 72dpi ~~ as Maureen has correctly mentioned – the dpi rating of an image has no bearing on its screen size (slideshow/web page/etc) – a 1024x768 pixel image will fill a monitor screen set to a screen resolution of 1024x768, be that a 14” monitor or a 21” monitor, and irrespective of whether the image is set to 50dpi or 500dpi – nor does the dpi rating of an image effect it’s file size when saved – dpi relates ONLY to the physical size of an image on paper. Sharpening ~~ there are many differing opinions as to WHEN sharpening should be applied to an image – but it is worth pointing out that if you are working on full-size images, and then resampling down for slideshow usage, your images will almost certainly require further sharpening (even if sharpening has already been applied) as down-sizing an image actually softens it. For those who frequently work on slideshow production it’s well worth the effort to develop your own Photoshop Action which can be made to re-size / apply sharpening (etc.etc.etc.) and save the current image as a JPG to a folder of your choosing even whilst still working on a layered PSD file. Such Actions can also by ‘played’ on entire folders full of ready-prepared images, or even directly on RAW files, potentially enabling the entire contents of a slideshow to be produced fully automatically for you whilst you check-out your emails (as if !?). For those with CS2, the “Image Processor” will do likewise ~ able to produce a JPG / TIFF / PSD (or even all three at once) at any given size, to any folder of your choosing, including the application of Actions, from any folder of images or pre-set selection of images in Bridge. bjc

Kenm,,,, I hope someone here can help, as the support people either don't understand my problem or think a gross difference in presentation timing, depending on a simple button click, are 'normal'. Their reply to my second attempt to make sense of my results was Please excuse me if this seems a little harsh – but – your request for assistance sounded more like a complaint to me. PTE is a very sophisticated piece of software, which you need to learn to ‘drive’ in order to use it well. If, at the first few attempts, it doesn’t quite seem to do what you ‘expect’ it to do, chances are that it’s not the software that is at fault. Dear Forum (Ford Motors) – I hope someone here can help, as the support people either don’t understand my problem or think a gross difference in the speed that my car travels at, depending on whether I press down on the throttle or not, is ‘normal’. Their reply to my second attempt to make sense of this was (unprintable !?) Having watched a lecture covering “the Timeline and how it might be used“ does necessarily mean that you understood what was being explained to you at the time. Straight forward questions will be answered promptly and courteously by the more knowledgeable and experiences members of this forum (which, by the way, also includes members of the support/admin team and Igor Kokarev, the Product Developer himself !?). Might I suggest though, a short period of ‘experimentation’ on your part (ideally using a lot fewer than 66 slides at a time) during which you can try out the various PTE functions. It really is quite straightforward,,, honest !! bjc

Davegee ~ I wouldn’t consider myself qualified in any way to truly know what I was talking about re: recommending a good dual-head graphics card, other than to say that the two I have both work just fine. I have two systems, both running dual-head cards ~ in the one is a Radeon 7000 VE ~ in the other a Radeon 9600 Pro. Both provide for one standard CRT output, and one DVI output (plus TV in both cases). The DVI socket is readily converted to a standard CRT socket by way of a simple. and inexpensive, adaptor plug (DVI in – CRT out) ~ this allows for two standard monitors (or two projectors) to be used at the same time (or one of each !?). No doubt the same can be said for whole bunch of other makes of graphics card,,, but I’ve always chosen Radeon ~~~ a decision probably based on price and features, at that time (?). Alrobin ~ as you also have a Radeon card I would imagine that you would have very similar software driving them as mine. If you right-click your desktop ~ choose Properties > Settings > Advanced > Displays,,, and with two monitors connected, you should have the option to expand your desktop across two screens – and/or – to have both monitors showing the same thing (which I think is what you asked about) ~ yes that works ~ although it doesn’t really benefit a home environment,,, but it would be really handy in an ‘L’ shaped lecture room, with dual projectors !? Or to provide you with a monitor screen and matching projector image when not working with a Laptop. Regards, bjc

I think you will find that dual projectors work perfectly, providing you have a dual-monitor graphics card. I have done a number of lectures using dual projectors, and only on one occasion was there any sort of 'conflict' (?) that stopped the second projector from working (never did figure out why that was). There is no better working environment than a dual monitor set up – once experienced you’ll never go back to working with a single monitor. And dual projectors for the tutorial/lecture purposes really is the way to go. bjc

Igor, I noticed this mentioned on the Luminous Landscape website this evening. So I thought I'd take a look ~ and downloaded the demo version. It 'works',,, and is fairly simple to operate. A test file that I created (at 720x480 AVI) ended up at 140MB !! ~~ and it was just 40 seconds long !? I can't say that I was too impressed (considering the file size) but I thought I would mention this program to you on the off-chance that you hadn't heard of it. Best wishes, bjc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo to Movie:- "Photo to Movie can turn your digital photos into spectacular QuickTime movies. It will literally change the way you look at your photos forever. Photo to Movie will gently zoom and pan across your photos, blending them together while moving from one photo to another. Your photos will come alive in a way that will engage and impress your audience. Forget the traditional static slide show -- use Photo to Movie to bring your photos alive, focusing attention on the important part of the photo." http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototo...vieoverview.php

From all that's been said above, relating to your 'problem' with PicturesToExe, it sounds to me like your hard-drive is just about to give up the ghost -- and if you have any important data saved on it you want to be doing something about backing-up that data NOW,,, before it's too late !! The problems you have been experiencing are ALMOST CERTAINLY hard-drive related, and not as a consequence of PicturesToExe having been installed on your computer. The early warnings of pending disaster, such as you've described, tend not to last too long before everything goes toes-up,,, so act NOW so as not too lose any irreplaceable data / files / documents / email addresses / images etc. If I'm wrong, then backing up your important data won't be such a bad thing ~~ but I've encountered what you've described (and/or similar) on more than one occasion ~~ I run nine separate hard-drives and have had to replace three in the last eighteen months,,, all of which gave out similar 'warning signs' before (very quicky) dying forever. PictureToExe is (as you will hopefully soon find out) a superb program that does what it sets out to do with great style and ease ~ undoubtedly the best software of it's type available ~ I suggest you re-install it once you have your hard-drive problem sorted out (with a new drive ?) and then you'll be able to discover for yourself why we all rate it so highly. bjc

Out of interest sake ~ the 'slide projector' sounds on "The Grand Tour" were added to the show via the black 'transition' slides ~ the general backing track carries the intro music and the narration. In this instance everything seems to have 'worked' OK ~ as in: both the individual slide sounds AND the main backing track both running well together. bjc

Igor, My word, you HAVE been busy ~ that's an amasing list of improvements. Thank you !!

LumenLux, Ronwil and Severn Bore ~ thank you all for your kind comments re: “The Grand Tour”. I had great fun putting it together ~ and I thank Tom95521 for inspiring the Retro-60’s Projector style transition used. Severn Bore ~ yes !! ~ that skinny youth is indeed me,,, well sussed-out !! Regards, bjc

goddi, another possibility, is that you might be producing CYMK files via your Scanner - and saving them as 8bit JPG's out of Photoshop,, but STILL in CYMK format ----- PTE can't read CYMK JPG's !? Check, before you save each file from Photoshop that they ARE 8bit and that they ARE in RGB ~ whilst this might NOT be the reason for your 'problem' I cannot think (at the moment) of any other reason WHY PTE cannot read your Photoshop produced JPG's. One question though ~~ why are you not scanning your images directly into Photoshop in the first instance ? You appear to be going a very long way around to get the images that you are after. bjc

Tom,,, I was rather intrigued by your desire to replicate the old fashioned slide-projector style of presentation ~ so much so that I went ahead and produced a short ‘demo’ as to how that might look, using PTE. If you would like to see what I have created, contact me on bjc@bjc100.co.uk and I will email you a short 10 slide ‘show’ (1.4MB ZIP) ~ if you like the ‘effect’ I can send you the necessary PTE file (plus content) so that you can analyse what I have done, and how. Hopefully, that will be of some help. bjc